Degenerative Disc Disease

rabbit8June 18, 2010

I had surgery about 3 years ago on my lower disc because it had ruptured. I went for an MRI today and found out the disc above it is wearing thin and my doctor told me it is going to rupture at some point. He wants to do surgery and fix the problem before it happens. I was thinking while have surgery to fix something that has not ruptured yet. I have 3 weeks to make a decision about whether I want the surgery or not. Please give me some advice.

I too have had back surgery, and it was for a disc in my lower back that total blew out, sending the jel like substance into the spinal canal and sending me to the floor in pain. This was after about 6 years of pain, being in and out of emergency rooms for horrid pain, and seeing physical therapists.

Have you been experiencing back pain? Is that why you had the MRI? Has the pain been bad?

After your surgery were you given a 'lot' of back exercises to do daily as part of your back healing and strengthening?
Have you continued to do them as you were supposed to do, or were you told to continue doing them for good back health?

If you are not experiencing 'horrid' back pain, I would look to physical therapy and back exercises as a better fix to at least try first before going under the knife.

I know I should be doing my back exercises daily or fairly regularly. They are geared to strengthening all the muscles in the back, from top to bottom, which aids in keeping the back/spine in alignment. If/when I start to feel some back pain, I start back on my exercises and that takes care of it.

I'm with you...if it isn't (totally) broken, why fix it? Your surgeon sound a little knife happy. Surgery in my opinion is the very last resort. I would not have it unless I was in a lot of pain and only after physical therapy and exercises had not helped, or helped enough.

Do you have a good list of back exercises to do? If not, I can try and find my hard copy of exercises and mail you a copy. Like I said, they are for total back health and were given to me by the physical therapist I saw before I left the hospital after my surgery. They are very comprehensive.

Drop me an email via my page email link, if you would like me to find and mail you what I have.